The Once and Future King
by Elizabeth Bartlett
Summary: You're telling me that Camelot was real? Somehow I find that hard to believe."


A/N: This is what happens when I watch 'The Tudors' on DVD and then read about King Arthur and Camelot. Takes place after my story 'It's Complicated' but you don't have to read it to know what's going on nor does it fit with the story. I don't own Torchwood, it belongs to the BBC and RTD, while _Le Morte d'Arthur_ belongs to Sir Thomas Malory. I just play in the sandbox once in awhile.

Slight spoilers for Boomtown, Bad Wolf, The Parting of the Ways, Sleeper, and Exit Wounds (with the exception that Tosh lives). Read and Review!

* * *

Jack walked out of his office and looked down into the Hub. It was one of those quite days, where nothing terribly exciting was happening, so he told everyone to take off early; they had worked hard the last few days and deserved a quite night for once. Davidson and Tosh had left, taking the lift out while Ianto closed up the tourist shop and took off from there. That just left three people in the complex at the moment; himself, Lorne, and Max.

The last was sitting at her husband's computer terminal typing away madly, pausing every now and then to click around for a few moments and then resume the firestorm of word-processing.

Wondering what had caught her attention, Jack made his way down the steps and towards her; making no effort to mask his movements. Max hardly glanced towards him and that only increased his curiosity. Standing behind her, he read aloud a snippet of the text on the screen; '_...Henry VIII wanted nothing more to produce a male heir, strengthening the Tudor dynasty while at the same time avoiding another bloody civil war like the War of the Roses which had torn the tiny country apart for more than thirty years. This is evidenced by the fact that he went to great lengths to get his marriage from Katherine of Aragon annulled while at the same time pursuing Anne Boleyn._'

"And what is this for?"

Max had dimly heard someone moving in the background, thought that it was Evan, and was about to beg for five more minutes until a voice spoke and she slightly jumped in surprise. Heart still racing Max swiveled the chair so that she was now facing him and looked up at Jack, head tilted to the side. "If you must know I'm writing a paper." She replied, turning back to the screen.

"Why?" Jack asked, raising an eyebrow.

Max smirked and closed out the document after saving her work. Taking out the flash drive of its port she stood and turned around to face Jack once again. "It's the oddest thing, but for some reason I want to put my degree in history to good use since I happen to live in Briton. Imagine that."

"Haha, funny." Jack replied folding his arms across his chest. "But seriously...why this sudden interest? It's been at least a decade since you were last published."

Max had been in the process of packing up when Jack mentioned it had been a while since she had written anything and paused, looking at him with a quizzical expression on her face, "How did you...when you looked me up right?"

"Just before you met him. Is that why?" Jack asked, leaning against the workstation table. "Traveling with the Doctor again?"

Max shrugged, "Maybe." She was silent for a minute, not sure how to articulate her thoughts. "It's funny, y'know." Max looked up and over at Jack, "I was the first one who actually wanted to see all these historical events with him; Mary Stuart's execution in 1587, the Spanish Armada being defeated in 1588, Queen Victoria's coronation in 1838, the Invasion of Normandy in 1944, the _Berliner Mauer_ being torn down in 1989...but he takes me to a planet where the dog's have no noses."

Max chuckled and let a small smile appear on her face, "Don't get me wrong that was amusing and he _did_ take me to see the Wall, as you saw from the photo, plus the slight incident with Mary Stuart but there was just so much that I wanted to see and never got to."

Jack was silent, letting Max talk. He knew how she felt, there had been a list of places that the Doctor, Rose, and him had wanted to go to after Kyoto. And as usual the universe had other ideas, but like he had told Ianto once (and countless times after that) he wouldn't change anything for the world. "I know what you mean." He said, placing a comforting hand onto one of hers.

Max looked at Jack and saw, not for the first time, that his eyes looked older than the rest of his body. It had puzzled her since she first saw that, back on Atlantis, how he knew so much about history but feigned ignorance on what was going to happen. "What about you? Where did you want to go?"

Jack was silent, regarding the question. He had, at one time, thought Boeshane but after everything with Gray decided it was better to let sleeping dogs lie. "Camelot." he finally replied with an amused chuckle. "Cai still owes me money."

Max laughed, "You're telling me that Camelot was real? Sorry, but I find that hard to believe."

"Yes it was, why is that so hard to believe? You thought that Atlantis was just a myth until you set foot on it." Jack retorted, a smile on his face.

"That's not the point. I can give you proof that Atlantis is real, classified proof but it's proof still the same. Give me solid proof that Arthur Pendragon was a real person and not just a 15th Century classical tale." Max challenged playfully, knowing full well that he couldn't.

If that wasn't a challenge then Jack didn't know what one was. Raising an eyebrow, he just looked at Max, then stood up from his impromptu seat on the workstation and walked towards his office. Striding in, he made his way towards his room while pulling out a key that he kept hidden; not even Ianto knew about it. Once he had climbed down, he then moved towards a locked closet, opened it, and rummaged until he had found what he was looking for; a sword encased in a scabbard.

Going back up the ladder, Jack then made his way back down to the Hub where he saw Evan had joined Max. Striding over to both of them he pulled out the sword and said, "Read what's engraved on it."

* * *

Max watched while Jack left for his office and wondered what he was going to get. The man was a puzzle not only to her but to most of the team, although they all seem to accept that Jack liked to keep to himself and only shared information about himself when it was pertinent to whatever case they were working on. A few minutes later she heard footsteps and looked to see Evan coming up from the Archives.

"Ready to go?" Evan called out, brushing dust off of his clothes.

"In a minute, Jack has something he wants to show me." Max replied, smiling.

"What's that?"

"I have no idea." Just then Jack reappeared carrying a sword. Raising an eyebrow, Max watched as he came towards them and then unsheathed it, asking her to read the inscription on the blade. After a brief glance towards Evan, she slowly moved forwards and took the sword in her hands. Looking at the spotless blade she read in a soft voice, "Take me up."

Looking at Jack she said, "What does this-"

"Now read the other side." Jack interrupted, a faint spark of amusement in his eyes.

Max did as she was told and said, "Cast me away...honestly Jack, what does this have to do with Arthur Pendragon and Camelot?"

Jack just smirked, "Now look at the hilt."

"It's like any other hilt, Jack." Max replied, looking at it. It was nothing special, except for that it looked like it had seen much ware and tear over the years and that where it met the blade formed twin chimaeras.

"Are you sure?"

Max handed the sword back to Jack while saying, "I'm sure." Gathering up her purse and taking Evan's hand said, "We'll see you tomorrow."

As they walked towards the cog door Evan asked, "What was that about?"

"I told Jack that he couldn't have been to a fictional castle in England." Max commented lightly, slightly smug in the fact that she had actually won in disproving one of Jack's stories.

* * *

Later that evening, after everyone was asleep in their apartment, Max sat at the computer working on her paper. Pausing in typing for a few minutes to look up some data on Jane Seymour she inadvertently clicked on a link that took her to a page on Excalibur...how that happened she couldn't quite figure out. Deciding that it would be amusing as a slight diversion she took her time reading the information on the screen.

It was a light read, nothing that she didn't know beforehand, but then she saw one of the versions of the sword; it was almost exactly like the one Jack had shown her that afternoon. "_That's impossible...must be some replica that Jack got thinking it would be fun to mess with people minds._" She thought to herself while scrolling down to the section where it talked about _Le Morte d'Arthur_.

Max glanced at the image to the left of the text and felt her eyes go wide. It was a image of the Lady of the Lake and Sir Bedivere and normally she had seen the ones where Bedivere's back was the only feature (aside from the hand holding the sword) but this was different; it was an oppisite view of the scene, where a dying Arthur was being held by Bedivere and to their sides was a sword with what looked to be twin animals on the hilt. She looked at the image and couldn't believe what she was seeing; Arthur looked exactly like Jack.

"Well I'll be damned." She said chuckling softly, while a smile played across her lips. At least she now knew where the legend that Arthur would rise from the dead had come from.


End file.
